INCLUSIVE GROWTH

There cannot be any controversy or debate as to how to achieve inclusive growth. Experience of all developed and developing countries as well as India shows that in order to achieve inclusive growth we need to do five things.

·                First is growth, which is very important.

·                Second is physical infrastructure such as power, roads and water.

·    Third is social infrastructure that includes education, health, skill building, hygiene and sanitation.

·       Fourth is governance, which means that whatever policies you have, whatever laws you have, whatever funds you spend, they must reach the people so that the effectiveness of government could be judged by whether we are able to improve governance or not.

·                 Fifth and the last is the attention to the disadvantaged groups, which are not likely to benefit from growth and governance alone-this could be migrants to cities, primitive tribal groups, could be women, could be Dalits, could be disabled people-who would need some special attention.

The focus to these five goals and the relative importance may vary-some economists may say you give more importance to growth, some may say governance is equally important. But by and large people will agree that growth, physical and social infrastructure, governance and attention to disadvantaged groups-all these need to be done to the extent possible.